No search was conducted on the method disclosed in this specification in the U.S. Patent Office or in any search facility. I am unaware of any prior art which is any more relevant to the method disclosed in this specification that that which is described hereinbelow.
I have been working in the area of assembling a plurality of radiator forming structures in order to produce a radiator structure. Basically, the radiator forming structures are in the form of tubes which carry coolant and extremely thin, highly folded fin elements mounted between the tubes so that the heat of the coolant can be dissipated by means of the fin elements as the coolant flows through the tubes from an inlet side of the radiator to an outlet side of the radiator. In past practices, a number of tubes and fin elements are assembled, one over the other and then a U-bolt is placed around the structure so that the upstanding ends of the U-bolt extend beyond the stacked radiator forming structures. A plate having a pair of openings is dropped over the U-bolt with one opening receiving each leg of the bolt. Thereafter, self tapping nuts are applied to the individual legs of the U-bolt in order to firmly anchor the plate in place and hold the stacked radiator forming structures in position to form the final radiator structure.
This method is rather costly because of the requirement of using self tapping nuts on the free ends of the U-bolt. This is necessary because the exact height dimension of the finished radiator structure is a variable. In general, the structure is formed by applying a prescribed amount of pressure in order to get a required force between the various elements making up the structure so that a good contact is made therebetween. Because the finned elements can crush at different rates, normally there is a variance of from about 0.050 to about 0.250 inches between the various finished assemblies. Because of such a variance, the U-bolts cannot be made to a particular dimension and therefore self tapping nuts must be used in order to secure the plate to the U-bolts and retain the stacked radiator forming structures in a particular configuration.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide a method of assembling stackable components in a manner which is simple and efficient in operation, but which provides an assembled structure in which the structural forming elements are held securely in contact with one another after their assembly.